Monday, August 9, 2010

Pretty much everyone knows that when something gets censored or banned, it only increases popularity. The film "Deep Throat" was not popular at all upon its release, but audiences increases exponentially the moment the government began banning it from theatres across North America. The same goes for young adult literature. When a book gets challenged, it only seems to make the situation worse. Suddenly groups are reading the book out loud to promote it, rather that it simply sitting on the shelf with minimal exposure. By challenging a novel, institutions and individuals, in reality, only make the text more visible and enticing to young people. Novels never before seen as interesting are suddenly exposed as containing something "restricted" which makes teens want to read all the more readily. Dave Iseman on New-Leader.com believes that Stockton schools have discovered this route to exposure and are using it to their advantage. By challenging The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Sherman Alexie), they have successfully caused an increase in readership. Bookstores even began to bring in extra copies of the book because of the newly piqued interest by community members. Is this the beginning of a whole new marketing strategy?